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Romney: Needing to drum up attention.

AP writes via Political Wire: "The long, grueling GOP primary race is over. Now comes a summertime lull the candidates could find just as difficult -- not because the schedule is crowded but because it isn't," the AP reports. "It is four months until the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August. Democrats hold their convention a week later in Charlotte, N.C. That's a long time to fill, with no votes that matter, no debates to draw national attention. Voters tend to hibernate politically from the end of the primary season to the start of the conventions." That lull "should be a bigger problem" for Mitt Romney than for President Obama. "A challenger must keep stirring up enthusiasm if he hopes to oust an incumbent president."

“Even as Mitt Romney begins courting moderate and independent voters who could determine the outcome in November, his campaign is still working behind the scenes to shore up support from conservatives who have yet to fully embrace him. Peter Flaherty, Romney’s liaison to social conservatives, is planning to fly to Washington this month to meet with key conservative leaders at a breakfast hosted by Edwin Meese III, who was President Reagan’s attorney general, according to Bay Buchanan, a Romney adviser who is helping to arrange the meeting,” The Boston Globe writes. “The campaign has hired Michael Biundo, Rick Santorum’s former campaign manager; talks regularly to Keith Nahigian, Michele Bachmann’s former campaign manager; and recently received the endorsement of Rick Perry, the Texas governor who was Romney’s bitter rival during the early stages of the Republican primary.”

John McCain on FOX, per The Hill: “I say any president, Jimmy Carter, anybody, any president would have, obviously, under those circumstances, done the same thing. And to now take credit for something that any president would do is indicative of take over campaign we're under -- we're -- we're seeing…So all I can say is that this is going to be a very rough campaign," McCain told Fox News in an interview set to air Monday night. "And I've had the great honor of serving in the company of heroes. And, you know the thing about heroes, they don't brag.”